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<h1><img style="width: 96px; height: 96px;" src="puppylogo96.png" alt=""> HOWTO:
Multimedia</h1>
Puppy has an excellent range of multimedia editing, conversion and viewing
tools. The links are to "help" pages on each program. <br>
<br>
Note that the links will only exist if the appropriate package is
installed. Puppy is now highly customisable, with the introduction of <span style="font-style: italic;">Woof</span>,
and a live-CD can easily be built with packages of your choice. I have greyed-out the packages that may not be in the 'standard'
release (non-customised) of Puppy -- but, they are all installable using the Puppy Package Manager.
<h3>Graphics</h3>

<p>Puppy has a very useful collection of applications and utilities for
manipulating graphic images, both bitmap and vector. Note that there has been
a trend away from the GIF format due to a patent on the LZW compression
algorithm, however that patent has expired in all countries of the world, so
this is not an issue any more (but, GIF is only useful for animation, as PNG is far superior in all other respects).<br>
The following table is a summary:</p>

<table border="1">
  <caption><br>
</caption>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="xpaint.htm">Xpaint</a></td>
      <td>Xpaint is a bitmap (raster) picture editor and viewer. Formats that
        can be opened and saved are gif, ico, jpeg, png, ppm, ps, pdf, tiff,
        xbm, xpm and xwd</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="mtpaint.htm">mtPaint</a></td>
      <td>This is another bitmap image editor, and specialises in pixel-level
        editing of images, especially icons. I have found mtPaint
        to be an excellent general-purpose paint program.<br>
In fact, my opinion of mtPaint keeps going up, as the author is
developing it rapidly. The 0.45 version supports scaling of images,
which is a serious shortcoming of Xpaint. V0.50 supports rotation by an
arbitrary angle. Even cropping, that is supported in Xpaint, is much
more sophisticated in mtPaint.<br>
</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="figurine/index.html">Figurine</a></td>
      <td>Figurine is a vector image editor and the native format is fig.
        Only fig files can be opened, however Figurine can use fig2dev to
        export to a variety of vector and bitmap formats.<br>
        Note that Figurine does not show the option to export to svg although
        fig2dev supports it. I intend to modify the source code of Figurine
        to fix this, however for now conversion from fig to svg can be
        achieved by using fig2dev directly on the commandline.<br>
</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>DIA</td>
      <td>A very nice vector graphics editor with libraries of shapes. Can
        import/export bitmap, xfig and svg formats. One disadvantage is that
        text and shapes cannot be arbitrarily rotated, however it will be
        possible to perform arbitrary rotations in Figurine and import into
        DIA. Libraries of custom shapes can be created.<br>
        The documentation is online: <a href="http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/docs.html">http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/docs.html</a>.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Sodipodi</td>
      <td>A very sophisticated SVG vector editor. SVG means "Scalable Vector
        Graphics" and is the open source equivalent of Flash. That is, vector
        diagrams, animation, user interaction on web pages. SVG plugins are
        available for all major web browsers, the most popular is from Adobe
        (a free download). However, even if you are not interested in SVG
        as-such, Sodipodi is a great creation tool for drawings that can be
        exported to PNG raster or Postscript (and indirectly to PDF and other
        vector formats via GSview) formats.<br>
        Documentation is to be found at <a href="http://www.sodipodi.com">www.sodipodi.com</a> and a tutorial is
        at <a href="http://hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au/%7Enjh/programming/draw-packages/sodipodi/">hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au/~njh/programming/draw-packages/sodipodi/</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: middle;">InkLite<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This is a fork of an early
version of Inkscape, and is basically the same as Sodipodi, with a few
tweaks and a conventional user interface. The Sodipodi documentation
applies to InkLite.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: middle;">Inkscape<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This
is the big brother of InkLite. Originally it was a fork of Sodipodi,
then got converted from C to C++ then later required the GTKmm and
Glibmm libraries. It also has many more features. Consequently it is
very big. Also, many of its plugins require Python to be installed (available in the 'devx' SFS file). Inkscape may not be in the 'standard' Puppy but is available
as a PET package.<br>
      Online documentation: <a href="http://www.inkscape.org/doc/index.php?css=css/base.css">http://www.inkscape.org/doc/index.php?css=css/base.css</a> <br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td><a href="impress/impdoc.html">Impress</a></td>
      <td>This is a very interesting Tcl/Tk GUI application for creating
        slide presentations. Not up to "Powerpoint" standard though.<br>
        Impress can rotate objects by any arbitrary angle, and is supposed to
        also be able to rotate text. It does this by using the pstoedit
        program to vectorise text, which can then be rotated. However, text
        rotation is a "work in progress" as it currently does not work and I
        have sent an email to the author, awaiting a reply. <br>
        One more thing -- the author reports that PowerPoint can export in
        Postscript format, which Impress can import quite well. See the
        Impress documentation.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Imposter</td>
      <td>This is a player for presentations created with Open Office
        Impress. You cannot actually create these presentations in Puppy,
        just play them. If Impress can import PowerPoint presentations, that
        would be a route to be able to play them on Puppy.<br>
        Imposter is a GTK2 application, so has antialiased fonts.<br>
      Home page: <a href="http://imposter.sourceforge.net/">http://imposter.sourceforge.net/</a> <br>
</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">FullerScreen<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This is an addon for SeaMonkey,
that allows creation of Powerpoint-like presentations. It does however
need basic HTML knowledge. Builtin to Puppy 4.3, see the 'Graphic' menu.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td><a href="gtksee.htm">GTKSee</a></td>
      <td>GTKSee is an image viewer, manager and slideshow. It displays
        thumbnails, like Rox, but has a lot more functionality optimised for
        managing images, such as showing the dimensions of images when there
        is mouse-over a thumbnail. The slideshow feature is very nice.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Fotoxx <br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This is the default image viewer in Puppy 4.0 - 4.2. It also has some editing features.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Gimageview<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This is a sophisticated image viewer. It even plays video files.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Gpicview<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">A basic image viewer.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Gqview<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Yet another image viewer.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://xsisqox.github.com/Viewnior/">Viewnior</a><br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This is the default image viewer in Puppy 4.3.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td><a href="fig2dev.htm">fig2dev</a></td>
      <td>Converts a fig vector image to a variety of vector and bitmap
        formats. This version for Puppy has been compiled to support the
        following vector formats: cgm, pic, ps, emf, eps, pdf, and svg. Also
        the following bitmap formats: gif, jpeg, pcx, png, ppm, sld, tiff,
        xbm, xpm.<br>
        Note that both Figurine and ABS use fig2dev for exporting.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="pstoedit.htm">pstoedit</a></td>
      <td>The Postscript and PDF viewer <a href="gsview.htm">GSview</a> uses
        pstoedit to export Postscript and PDF files to various vector
        formats. Supported formats are ps, ai (Adobe Illustrator), idraw,
        fig, xfig, tgif, tk, hpgl, pic, mma, mpost, sk (Sketch), kil
        (Kontour), pdf, java1, java2, dxf, rpl, rib, lwo, dxf.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="gifsicle/index.html">gifsicle</a></td>
      <td>gifsicle is a console program for constructing animated gifs. There
        is also a viewer -- note also, Firefox or Opera can play animated
        gifs. Most importantly, gifsicle can analyse frames and create an
        animated gif in which subsequent frames only have the changes from
        the previous frame, greatly reducing size.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="scalerx.htm">scalerx</a></td>
      <td>scalerx is a superb console program. If you have a small bitmap
        image and you want to make it bigger, it will have jagged edges,
        however scalerx analyses the image and smooths the edges. Only works
        with png images.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="xli.htm">xli</a></td>
      <td>This is a console application to display an image in a window or to
        load it onto the root window (the desktop background). Supported
        image types are fbm, Sun Rasterfile, CMU WM Raster, pbm, Faces
        Project, png, gif, jfif, jpeg, Utah RLE, Windows OS/2 RLE, Photograph
        on CD, X Window Dump, Targa, McIDAS, G3 FAX, PC Paintbrush, GEM,
        MacPaint, X Pixmap (xpm), X Bitmap (xbm).</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: middle;"><a href="qiv.htm">qiv</a><br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This does the same as xli and is smaller and faster. qiv replaces xli in Puppy version 2.10 onward.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Gview<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Basic application to display an image in a window, used in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td>grabc</td>
      <td>This is in the menu as "RGB screen color picker", and is a simple
        application that displays a crosshair that is placed as desired then
        a left-click samples the underlying color and displays its
        red-green-blue components.

        
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Gcolor2<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">This is the color chooser and screen color picker used in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td>netpbm</td>
      <td>This is a package of graphic file format conversion and
        manipulation utilities. Puppy has a subset of the full package.
        Included with Puppy are: anytopnm (just a shell script that
        determines file type and calls one of the other conversion programs),
        giftopnm, jpegtopnm, pgmtopbm, pbmtext, pbmtoxbm, pngtopnm, pnmalias,
        pnmconvol, pnmcut, pnmnlfilt, pnmrotate, pnmscale, pnmsmooth,
        pnmtops, pnmtotiff, pnmtojpeg, pnmtopng, ppmdither, ppmlabel, ppmrainbow,
        ppmtogif, ppmtopgm, ppmtoxpm, ppmtobmp, ppmquant, pstopnm, tifftopnm,
        xbmtopbm, xpmtoppm, xwdtopnm.

        <p><i>pbm</i> is a monochrome format, <i>pgm</i> is greyscale,
        <i>ppm</i> is color, and <i>pnm</i> format covers all three. Many
        applications in Puppy use these utilities and they are mighty useful
        in scripts also as input and outputs can be piped. Online
        documentation is to be found at <a href="http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/">netpbm.sourceforge.net</a>.</p>
      </td>
    </tr><tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.gphoto.org/proj/gtkam/">Gtkam</a><br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Acquire photos from a digital camera. This is standard in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://www.xsane.org/">Xsane</a><br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">A GUI for acquiring images from a scanner. This is in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>

  </tbody>
</table>

<h3>Video</h3>

<p>From version 0.9.6, Puppy is using Xine-libs, which handles a very wide
range of audio and video formats.</p>

<table border="1">
  <caption><br>
</caption>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Xine-libs</td>
      <td>Xine-libs is the backend libraries providing support for a wide
        range of audio and video formats. Documentation is to be found
        online: <a href="http://xine.sourceforge.net/">xine.sourceforge.net</a></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Gxine</td>
      <td>Gxine is a GUI frontend to Xine-libs, and can play video DVDs,
        various video files including Quicktime, MPG and AVI.

        <p>Playing DVDs works real nice, provided that Puppy has correctly
        identified your DVD drive -- you should find the link /dev/dvd
        pointing to the actual drive, for example /dev/hdc (or whatever).</p>
      </td>
    </tr><tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Mplayer<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;"><span>Another multimedia (video and audio) player. Available as a PET package.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Pdvdrsab<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">DVD video ripper. Puppy enthusiast 'plinej' has developed this. See 'Multimedia' menu.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>

  </tbody>
</table>

<p>Gxine/Xine can have "codec" files added onto it to extend its capabilites
-- see note in Audio section below.</p>

<h3>Audio</h3>

<p>Xine-libs and Gxine provide a generic media player, including support for
a wide range of audio file formats. <br>
</p>

<table border="1">
  <caption><br>
</caption>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="wavplay.htm">Wavplay</a></td>
      <td>This is a console application that plays and records wav audio
        files.

        <p>Note, I have kept this application in Puppy although it is
        redundent with the advent of Gxine (see below).</p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Gxine</td>
      <td>Gxine is a media player that will handle a wide range of audio file
        formats. Gxine can also play audio streamed from the Internet.<br>
Will play audio CDs without requiring an internal cable connecting
audio-out on CD-drive to sound card -- other CD players listed below
require the cable.<br>
</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="ripperX.htm">ripperX</a></td>
      <td>Rips songs off audio CDs and saves them as wav or mp3.

        <p>You could use ripperX as just a CD player. One great thing is the
        support for cddb -- if connected to the Internet, just click the
        "cddb" button and all the CD song titles will get downloaded.</p>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Asunder<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Rips songs off audio CDs.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">RipOff<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Rips songs off audio CDs. Default in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Pcdripper<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Rips songs off audio CDs. Also in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td>GplayCD</td>
      <td>Plays audio CDs. Gxine and ripperX can also play audio CDs.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: middle;">XfreeCD<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Plays audio CDs and supports cddb.<br>
Note, hangs if a CD not inserted before starting this app.<br>
Project home page: <a shref="http://xfreecd.sourceforge.net/">http://xfreecd.sourceforge.net/</a><br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td><a href="cdp.htm">cdplay</a></td>
      <td>Console application to play audio CDs.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="gcombust/FAQ.html">Gcombust</a></td>
      <td>Can be used to create audio CDs from wav or mp3 files.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">WishCD<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Can be used to create audio CDs from wav files.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Graveman<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Can be used to create audio CDs<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td><a href="setvol.txt">setvol</a></td>
      <td>This is a small console utility to set or get the volume.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="xtmix.htm">xtmix</a>, <br>
</td>
      <td>GUI sound mixer.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Sgmixer<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">GUI sound mixer used in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td>Snack audio player</td>
      <td>This is an alternative to Gxine for playing audio files. Uses the
        Snack library. Needs Tcl/Tk.<br>
</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>XS audio recorder and editor</td>
      <td>XS uses the Snack library, so handles a wide range of file formats.
        Apart from recording, or editing existing sound files, XS is useful
        to convert sound files from one format to another. Needs Tcl/Tk.<br>
</td>
    </tr><tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: middle;">Sweep<br>
      </td>
      <td>Sound recorder and editor. Many features.<br>
Online docs: <a href="http://www.metadecks.org/software/sweep/tutorials/">http://www.metadecks.org/software/sweep/tutorials/</a><br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">mhWaveEdit<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Sound recorder and editor. Can also be used to convert between different audio file formats. Default in Puppy 4.xx.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
<tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: middle;">madplay<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Console mp3 player.<br>
Online docs: <a href="http://www.linuxmanpages.com/man1/madplay.1.php">http://www.linuxmanpages.com/man1/madplay.1.php</a> <br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">Pmetatagger<br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;">View and edit text tags in audio files.<br>
      </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br>
      </td>
      <td style="vertical-align: top;"><br>
      </td>
    </tr>

  </tbody>
</table>

<p>Gxine/Xine can play streamed audio and video off the Internet, so
for
example, you can listen to Internet radio stations. However, mainly for
legal
reasons the most up-to-date RealAudio and MicrosoftMedia "codec" files
are
not included in Puppy, which means that some radio stations may not
work.
However, you can download and install them -- see the "Streaming audio
and video Gxine plugin" section at the bottom of this page.<br>
</p>

<h3>Scanning</h3>

<p>Puppy has the SANE scanner backend (with all the drivers), and XSane
GUI frontend. This is all built-in to Puppy 4.xx, nothing else to
install.<br>
</p>

<h3>Printing</h3><p>Printing in Puppy is based around Ghostscript and CUPS, and the main applications
such as Abiword, Amaya, Xpaint and Firefox, generate files in Postscript
format for printing. The gs program is able to convert Postscript files to a
format suited to a particular printer.</p>

<p>The Ghostscript package has its own set of printer drivers, however that
is very limited, and Puppy uses the Gutenprint drivers, that work with
Ghostscript. This adds support for over 1300 printers.</p>

<p>To be able to print, you must first run the CUPS Printer Wizard. This
enables you to choose the correct driver and configure it to
work in Puppy. You will find this Wizard in the 'Setup' menu.</p>

<p>CUPS, Ghostscript, fonts, and the full set of Gutenprint drivers are
built-in to Puppy, so nothing else to install for printing. However, if
you have a Hewlett Packard printer that is not in the Gutenprint
driver-suite, there is an extra PET package available, named 'hpijs' or 'hplip'.<br>
</p>
<hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;">
<h3>Streaming audio and video (Gxine) plugin</h3>


<p>Gxine is setup as a plugin for Firefox/Seamonkey, so you can, for example, listen to
Internet radio stations. Many will work, however in same cases you need to
get later "codec" files for RealAudio and WindowsMedia, the two formats most
commonly used for streaming audio. You do not need to install the RealPlayer
or any other player, as codec files can be added to Gxine.<br>
</p>
<p>The collection of "extra codecs" available from the Mplayer site are available as a PET package.<br>
Just run the PETget package manager (see Menu -&gt; Setup -&gt; Puppy
package manager, or just click on the 'install' icon on the desktop) and install the package named "mplayer_codecs_full".<br>
</p><br>
<hr>
<small>(c) Copyright 2004,2005,2006,2008 Barry Kauler</small>

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